Unsustainable development pathways caused by tropical deforestation

Global sustainability strategies require assessing whether countries’ development trajectories are sustainable over time. However, sustainability assessments are limited because losses of natural capital and its ecosystem services through deforestation have not been comprehensively incorporated into...

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Main Authors: Carrasco, Luis Roman, Nghiem, Le, Chen, Zhirong, Barbier, Edward B.
Format: Journal Article
Language:Inglés
Published: American Association for the Advancement of Science 2017
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10568/89639
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author Carrasco, Luis Roman
Nghiem, Le
Chen, Zhirong
Barbier, Edward B.
author_browse Barbier, Edward B.
Carrasco, Luis Roman
Chen, Zhirong
Nghiem, Le
author_facet Carrasco, Luis Roman
Nghiem, Le
Chen, Zhirong
Barbier, Edward B.
author_sort Carrasco, Luis Roman
collection Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (CGSpace)
description Global sustainability strategies require assessing whether countries’ development trajectories are sustainable over time. However, sustainability assessments are limited because losses of natural capital and its ecosystem services through deforestation have not been comprehensively incorporated into national accounts. We update the national accounts of 80 nations that underwent tropical deforestation from 2000 to 2012 and evaluate their development trajectories using weak and strong sustainability criteria. Weak sustainability requires that countries do not decrease their aggregate capital over time. We adopt a strong sustainability criterion that countries do not decrease the value of their forest ecosystem services with respect to the year 2000. We identify several groups of countries: countries, such as Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and India, that present sustainable development trajectories under both weak and strong sustainability criteria; countries, such as Brazil, Peru, and Indonesia, that present weak sustainable development but fail the strong sustainability criterion as a result of rapid losses of ecosystem services; countries, such as Madagascar, Laos, and Papua New Guinea, that present unsustainable development pathways as a result of deforestation; and countries, such as Democratic Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone, in which deforestation aggravates already unsustainable pathways. Our results reveal a large number of countries where tropical deforestation is both damaging to nature and not compensated by development in other sectors, thus compromising the well-being of their future generations.
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spelling CGSpace896392025-03-13T09:44:48Z Unsustainable development pathways caused by tropical deforestation Carrasco, Luis Roman Nghiem, Le Chen, Zhirong Barbier, Edward B. deforestation deforestación ecosystem services servicios de los ecosistemas tropical forest sustainability sostenibilidad Global sustainability strategies require assessing whether countries’ development trajectories are sustainable over time. However, sustainability assessments are limited because losses of natural capital and its ecosystem services through deforestation have not been comprehensively incorporated into national accounts. We update the national accounts of 80 nations that underwent tropical deforestation from 2000 to 2012 and evaluate their development trajectories using weak and strong sustainability criteria. Weak sustainability requires that countries do not decrease their aggregate capital over time. We adopt a strong sustainability criterion that countries do not decrease the value of their forest ecosystem services with respect to the year 2000. We identify several groups of countries: countries, such as Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and India, that present sustainable development trajectories under both weak and strong sustainability criteria; countries, such as Brazil, Peru, and Indonesia, that present weak sustainable development but fail the strong sustainability criterion as a result of rapid losses of ecosystem services; countries, such as Madagascar, Laos, and Papua New Guinea, that present unsustainable development pathways as a result of deforestation; and countries, such as Democratic Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone, in which deforestation aggravates already unsustainable pathways. Our results reveal a large number of countries where tropical deforestation is both damaging to nature and not compensated by development in other sectors, thus compromising the well-being of their future generations. 2017-07-07 2017-12-05T17:55:50Z 2017-12-05T17:55:50Z Journal Article https://hdl.handle.net/10568/89639 en Open Access American Association for the Advancement of Science Carrasco, Luis Roman; Nghiem, Le; Chen, Zhirong; Barbier, Edward B.. 2017. Unsustainable development pathways caused by tropical deforestation . Science Advances 3(7): e1602602.
spellingShingle deforestation
deforestación
ecosystem services
servicios de los ecosistemas
tropical forest
sustainability
sostenibilidad
Carrasco, Luis Roman
Nghiem, Le
Chen, Zhirong
Barbier, Edward B.
Unsustainable development pathways caused by tropical deforestation
title Unsustainable development pathways caused by tropical deforestation
title_full Unsustainable development pathways caused by tropical deforestation
title_fullStr Unsustainable development pathways caused by tropical deforestation
title_full_unstemmed Unsustainable development pathways caused by tropical deforestation
title_short Unsustainable development pathways caused by tropical deforestation
title_sort unsustainable development pathways caused by tropical deforestation
topic deforestation
deforestación
ecosystem services
servicios de los ecosistemas
tropical forest
sustainability
sostenibilidad
url https://hdl.handle.net/10568/89639
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